The supreme court judges rejected an appeal by Theresa May and Chris Grayling against a previous ruling. Photograph: Amer/Rex

Human rights and privacy campaigners have welcomed a supreme court ruling that job applicants do not need to disclose convictions for childhood offences or for other minor offences when they go through criminal record checks.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission said the supreme court judges had "sensibly recognised" that people should not be haunted forever by minor childhood offences.

The judges rejected a joint appeal by the home secretary, Theresa May, and the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, to overturn a previous appeal court ruling that prospective employers need not be told of convictions and cautions that were "spent" under the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act when they asked future employees about their criminal record.

The ruling stemmed from two individual cases. The first involved a man known as T, who was forced to reveal two police cautions he had received at the age of 11 in connection with two stolen bikes when he applied for a part-time job at a football club and when he enrolled in a university course in sports studies.

The second involved a woman, identified as JB, who was cautioned in 2001 when she was 41 in connection with the theft of a packet of false fingernails. Eight years later after training as a care worker, she was barred from working in the care sector when the caution was disclosed during a criminal records check.

The supreme court judges ruled in both cases that the requirement to disclose the cautions to potential employers was a breach of their right to a private life and significantly jeopardised entry into their chosen fields of endeavour.

"This judgment sensibly recognises, as did the court of appeal, that people should not be haunted forever by minor childhood offences, in a way which might prevent them from becoming productive members of society and from engaging in their chosen field of employment," she said.

"A warning given for a relatively trivial offence committed many years ago by a child, who has not reoffended, has no relevance to how that person could be safely employed to work as an adult."

James Welch, legal director for the human rights group Liberty, who supported the case, said: "Finally, an injection of proportionality into our criminal records system. Rules which allowed for blanket disclosure left no room for common sense and let irrelevant and unreliable information ruin lives. Of course appropriate checks must be made but today's judgment moves us towards a system that strikes a balance between protecting the vulnerable and ensuring that people with minor convictions can put their pasts behind them."

The Home Office introduced changes to the system of criminal records checks, which are carried out on 4 million people a year, in the wake of the original appeal court ruling. A filtering mechanism was introduced that screened out single minor convictions or cautions.

But ministers decided to take the case to the supreme court on the grounds that they believed the "protection of children and vulnerable groups must not be compromised".

When will convictions be disclosed?

"Spent" criminal convictions and cautions will no longer have to be disclosed during a criminal record check:

• As long as they did not lead to a prison sentence.

• As long as they do not relate to a "listed offence" such as violent or sexual crimes.

• As long as the individual has no other convictions.

• Only when five and a half years has elapsed for those under 18 at the time of conviction or 11 years for those over 18. For cautions, two years must have passed for under-18s and six years for those over 18.

For example, the supreme court ruling would not have affected the case of Majid Ahmed, an 18-year-old A-grade student from Bradford, who was barred from taking up a place at Imperial College to train as a doctor in 2008 because of a "spent" conviction.

Ahmed was ordered to serve four months' community service in 2005 after being convicted of burglary. Under the new rules he would have had to disclose the conviction when he applied to Imperial because the five-and-a-half-year time limit had not yet elapsed. Some forms of burglary, including aggravated burglary, are also a "listed offence".